Football: No. 15 Stanford shuts out CU Buffs

Coach Jon Embree yells at his team during the Stanford game.
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CLIFF GRASSMICK
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"Please cheat."

Colorado football fan George Merritt tweeted those words to Buffzone.com during halftime of another lost Saturday on the gridiron for his beloved Buffaloes.

CU hosted No. 15 Stanford for homecoming and trailed 35-0 after 30 minutes. The Buffs were dreadful on offense managing just 20 yards of total offense in 26 first-half plays. They never improved and lost 48-0.

It was the first home shutout in 26 years dating back to Oklahoma blanking the Buffs 28-0 on Nov. 15, 1986 during coach Jon Embree's senior season as a CU tight end.

Buffzone.com asked fans to share any comments or suggestions they wanted CU officials to hear regarding the state of the football program and its future. The Buffs are now 1-8 and widely regarded as one of the worst college football programs in the nation.

It felt like the end of the season in the postgame press conference for the home team. Coach Jon Embree faced a slew of big picture questions, including one from this newspaper asking him to grade the job he and his coaches have done so far.

"Not good," Embree said. "I don't know about a letter grade. I'm not going to sit here and blame people. We got to be better. We all have to be better."

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Embree said he is taking a hard look at what CU is doing schematically on both sides of the ball. He has previously acknowledged trying to add elements of spread offenses to the Buffs' attack, while admitting doing so in the middle of the season is a challenge.

Embree said he told his team after its fifth consecutive loss that better days lie ahead if players and coaches will continue to work hard. He was asked what emotions he is feeling as his team sunk to 1-8 this season and 4-18 in his tenure. Frustration, anger, embarrassment?

"Probably all of them," Embree said. "I just know some things will be different. I'll just leave it at that."

Embree was thought to be on the verge of changing quarterbacks this week but he decided to stay with Jordan Webb, who threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown in the first quarter to start Stanford's scoring.

Colorado played three quarterbacks in the game, but Webb, Nick Hirschman and Connor Wood all proved ineffective. The Buffs couldn't run the ball against the second-ranked rushing defense in the nation. CU finished with 76 total yards of offense.

Embree said he kept Webb in the starting lineup because he earned it throughout the week of practice. He said he didn't want to address the quarterback situation until next week because he didn't want to appear to be blaming anyone.

Other than facing Stanford's stout run defense, Embree said his offense struggled with protection issues.

"It was a perfect storm," he said. "When we did have people open, we had protection issues. When we were protecting, we couldn't get open. Protection was a problem today."

It took most of the first quarter for the Stanford offense to find its comfort zone, but once it did, the Cardinal scored touchdowns on four consecutive possessions. Stanford finished with 206 rushing yards and 436 total yards of offense, well short of some of the record-setting numbers the Buffs have allowed to earlier opponents this season.

The Buffs were beaten by halftime once again, prompting many questions and angry comments by CU fans on Twitter.

Fabian Baumann seemed to be the one respondent with the most patience remaining. He said this in two tweets: "I haven't missed a home game in years but considered staying home today. Left at halftime. There's no excitement associated with attending games anymore. Complete apathy. Not sure how to fix this, but starting to feel like changes need to be made."

The majority of the student section was left empty throughout Saturday's game and while there were 44,128 tickets sold, there appeared to be more than 10,000 empty seats at the end of the first quarter. Folsom Field holds 53,613.

Peter Soldinger summed up how many in black and gold are feeling. "We're embarrassed."

Greg Giuffra said: "Please let them know fans are sick of the administration's seeming lack of concern/ care about the state of the program."

Mike Grabinger asked this of CU officials: "How and why do you think this is acceptable and why can't you admit a change is needed?"

Michael Kennedy added: "All I want is CU to be competitive. Is that to (sic) much to ask from a program that is (or was) top 25 in all time wins?"

The Cardinal headed home with showdowns looming against Oregon and Oregon State.

Colorado has three games left, but it already seems like the offseason.

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